Celebrating Community
After more than 160 years as a repository of human and industrial waste, the Gowanus Canal is leaving its toxic legacy behind—or under. Last month marked a milestone in the Superfund cleanup of the waterway, as the bottom of the canal north of the 3rd Street Bridge was successfully injected with a five-foot layer of cement in a process known […]
No sooner had Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional counsel, Brian Carr, finished giving his update on the Gowanus Canal Superfund cleanup—works are advancing on schedule with no major hiccups—than members of the neighborhood’s Community Advisory Group began venting their grievances. Among other things, members who attended the June 22 virtual meeting expressed to Carr their disappointment in what they described […]
Members of the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group were smiling in their Zoom squares when Christos Tsiamis, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) engineer leading the Gowanus Canal Superfund cleanup, reappeared on their screens on March 23. Tsiamis had not attended the group’s monthly virtual meetings since December, when he expressed concerns over changes utility company National Grid made last summer […]
When the city unleashes a rezoning and its accompanying host of contentious public review meetings on a neighborhood, seldom does anything stop it. A coalition of local grassroots organizations led by Voice of Gowanus managed to do so temporarily by suing the city and preventing it from triggering the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), a seven-month path leading to […]
The sun was out, but the slanted light of fall did little to warm the small crowd gathered at the Carroll Street Bridge in Gowanus the morning of Nov. 16. But despite winds that whipped bare hands and quickly chilled the hot cider they held in paper cups, members of Gowanus Dredgers, an organization that promotes waterfront stewardship at its […]
As the city prepares to move forward with its plans to rezone Gowanus, community members worry about what that will mean for the Gowanus Canal cleanup. According to the environmental impact study produced by the Department of City Planning (DCP) earlier this year, the amount of combined rainwater and sewage that overflows into the canal is projected to increase almost […]
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will begin dredging the Gowanus Canal in mid-November, scraping out the thick layer of tar and feces that sits at the bottom of the waterway. But Christos Tsiamis, the EPA engineer who heads the cleanup, warned that a new layer of gunk could start accumulating after dredging is done in 2023, as the completion date […]
In its contentious rezoning proposal, the Department of City Planning reimagines Gowanus as an urban Venice—or something vaguely resembling Miami. The sketches in the Waterfront Access Plan the city presented last year show pedestrians crossing bridges with scenic views of the canal. They show children frolicking in waterfront parks shaded by trees and new residential highrises that shine with glassy, […]